Understanding the political and economic dimension of school lunch programs.

School lunch programs don't work the same way a lot of initial, welfare state programs did, when they were created by social democratic countries that were creating their welfare policies in response to the demands of labor unions for income protection. Most leftist demands were not around children, ever. They were around protecting working men through the power of the union. School lunches stand out because they end up feeding a constituency that nobody really fights for.

Author Jennifer Geist Rutledge examines the global social policies behind school lunch programs - both as an entry point for the welfare state into the lives of poor children, as an endpoint for the national agricultural surplus - and explores the intersection between public health, the state and capitalism on a global scale.